


not with a bang (but a whimper)

by fvckradio



Category: WAYV
Genre: Alternate Universe - Dystopia, Alternate Universe - Science Fiction, Disappearance, End of the World, Environmentalism, Established Relationship, Government Surveillance, Heavy Angst, Kidnapping, M/M, Temporary Kidnapping, Unreliable Narrator, they all die at the end
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-19
Updated: 2021-01-19
Packaged: 2021-03-18 18:33:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,655
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28622601
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fvckradio/pseuds/fvckradio
Summary: This is the way the world endsThis is the way the world endsThis is the way the world endsNot with a bang but a whimper.There is no one, singular moment in which it all falls apart. In fact, when Qian Kun goes up in flames, he more than sees it coming.
Relationships: Liu Yang Yang/Qian Kun
Comments: 17
Kudos: 41
Collections: Challenge #4 — Awaken The World





	not with a bang (but a whimper)

**Author's Note:**

> **WARNING: this fic deals with sensitive material.** The world ends, both characters die, if this is sensitive for you, please don't continue. I would also like to advise you not to read if you are uncomfortable with extreme surveillance states and government-sanctioned kidnappings and violence. _if there is anything not tagged that you feel should be tagged please let me know_
> 
> title and excerpts from [The Hollow Men by T.S Eliot](https://allpoetry.com/the-hollow-men)

FOR THINE IS THE KINGDOM

FOR THINE IS

LIFE IS

FOR THINE IS THE

**The world does not end all at once.**

**There is no one, singular moment in which it all falls apart. In fact, when Qian Kun goes up in flames, he more than sees it coming.**

**An Earth destroyed, this is the way the world ends.**

**That is how this story ends. This is how it starts:**

Kun goes to the market every seventh day. It is a forty-minute journey from their front door to the entrance stall and he takes each step with trepidation. The broken roads carry him from place to place and he does his damndest to not let his fear follow him. He could walk this route blindfolded, but he doesn’t. Instead, he follows it with his eyes wide open, just in case.

The city has been like this for as long as he has lived there. Decayed and covered in trees is how he finds his home most familiar. His mother used to tell him stories of intention and saving the planet and he had smiled and nodded and asked her more, despite not understanding it at all. Now, his mother is long gone and there is no one to tell him why the leaves are painted green every season. 

Nevertheless, Kun enjoys his walk to the market. 

The market itself is busy, bustling full of others trying to gather their own groceries. He takes his time, stops at the stalls he is most familiar with, and stops at the ones he isn’t too. He greets his favorite vendors and compares the prices to those at the grocer in the city center. It’s more expensive here, but the market always has more options than the city-run stores.

Back alley markets aren’t recommended by the government; they claim the lack of oversight means that just about anything could be in the food, but Kun has been shopping at these stalls since he was a kid and he knows that it is better to take the risk of honey cut with some sort of organic material than surveillance. Kun knows the black market is not the thing to be afraid of in this city. 

He packs his items carefully into his basket, puts the delicate items where they will be most well hidden, and makes his trek home. It is always longer going back and he checks over his shoulder when he knows he is alone. Kun is well-practiced at avoiding suspicion, but he still has to double-check. 

Climbing the stairs to get to their apartment is the scariest part, the place he is most likely to be stoped. Today he is lucky, and he is alone. When he gets inside, he locks the door and shuts the blinds. Then, he unpacks. 

He starts with the fabric. The blanket he uses to hide his groceries gets neatly folded on the table. He puts his bread in his bread box, then takes out his honey and his two kinds of eggs. They go in their refrigerator, in between their butter rations and the meat he went to the real grocery store for. Kun unpacks a few more items, some herbs, some vegetables before his fingers brush the things he keeps most secret. The gun goes in the drawer, but the documents, those get snuck into the bedroom, hidden under the mattress to be read under candlelight at night. The soap goes in the bathroom and he ends his ritual by lighting a candle and saying a prayer. When the basket is put away, he opens the blinds and makes himself comfortable on the sofa. 

Yangyang comes home on the four o’clock bus as usual. Kun doesn’t move when he hears him come in, just keeps petting the cat and thinking about the run he has to do tomorrow. In the kitchen, a drawer opens and closes. He waits for Yangyang to come to him. 

“How was your visit?” Yangyang asks casually as he sits down next to him. The cat climbs out of his lap and over to the new, more exciting lap. Kun stretches. 

“Good,” he replies. “Good, I got the bread you like. There is juice in the fridge.” 

“Did you see him today?” 

Kun shakes his head. “No, only Winwin. He says hello.” 

“That’s nice,” Yangyang hums. “Do you see what happened?” 

“Of course, did you buy the cabbage?”

“Yeah, it’s on the counter.” Yangyang reaches out and brushes the hair away from where it is brushing against his ear. “Do you want to make dinner together?” 

“Yeah, yeah we can,” Kun says quietly. “Let me just, let me close the curtains.” 

**Every story has a beginning and a middle and an end.**

**Kun and Yangyang’s story begins in a university library in between the stacks and the unavoidable stress of the end of it all and it ends suddenly in the middle of the street one afternoon. Or maybe it ends later, when the four pm bus comes and goes and Kun sits alone in the living room. Or maybe it ends well before it begins, when the university announces it will be closing and Kun makes out with a stranger in between the shelves he’s meant to be boxing up for take-away.**

**Either way, the middle doesn’t matter, at least not anymore, at least not to Kun.**

In the mornings, Kun wakes up and makes breakfast before it is time to open the curtains. He makes sure to put away the things they forgot about in the evening, shuffles around the bookshelves a little to accommodate the new literature behind the shelves. Shuffling around the living room, he sighs before he opens the heavy curtains. The light slips through the window in stripes and scans the living room. No changes. Kun exhales and turns to make breakfast. 

The days feel like they should blend together with how monotonous they are, but Kun finds that the schedule eases his mind. It is Day One after the market so today he will take the speed rail downtown and pick up what he needs from the grocer. He hums a tune he heard on the radio while he scrambles eggs and when he hears the familiar sound of Yangyang climbing into the shower, he turns on the kettle. 

They drink their tea quietly and Yangyang kisses him as he walks out the door. He will be back on the four o’clock train and Kun knows better than to speak about the day ahead of him. 

He rides the rail in silence, just him and his reusable bags and everyone else on their way into Metro Center. The car is silent and he keeps his head down for as long as everybody else does. Kun has been doing this long enough to know how to avoid suspicion. He gives the officer his id when he passes into the city center and he smiles and nods as he walks down the main street. 

The grocer is located in the middle of the street and there is no line to get in. Kun maneuvers his cart through the aisles and buys the things he is supposed to. He buys a few fresh fruits and a bag of rice and a single copy of the newspaper. Kun finishes his shopping in an hour in front of the pharmacy. He debates filling his prescription. He goes to check out instead. 

The ride home will be quick so he stops in at the garden shop. He should buy another plant. He decides against it at the last minute; another plant means more water and that is not a luxury he and Yangyang can afford. 

He makes it just in time for the midday rail. Bags are checked and passes are scanned and Kun is on his way back to the apartment before he knows it. The ritual of putting away groceries is easier when they are not illegal, yet he still hesitates while putting his rice in the cabinet. 

(that box has moved. someone has moved that box. that box has been moved.) 

The fruit goes in a bowl on the counter and he leaves the newspaper on the kitchen table. This day is cleaning day, so he pulls out the vacuum and he cleans the bathroom and he makes sure the cat has fresh litter. 

His day passes quickly and the four o’clock train comes and Yangyang joins him in rehanging the curtains. They wave to their neighbor and kiss in the warm sunlight of golden hour. With the curtains closed they fumble to bed and Kun pretends he isn’t listening as Yangyang says a soft prayer for them. 

(something is missing from that cabinet.)

THIS IS THE DEAD LAND

THIS IS CACTUS LAND

On the fifth day of the week, the four o’clock train comes and goes and Yangyang does not come home in his whirlwind of noise and boyishness. Kun does not let it bother him. He makes dinner for one and locks the door and keeps the curtains open all night. 

Yangyang does not come back in the morning, nor the next evening and that is when Kun rests his head against the kitchen table and knows he is not coming back. 

NOT THAT FINAL MEETING

IN THE TWILIGHT KINGDOM

**** **The end of the world has been coming since before Kun was born. At the ripe age of 25, he understands that scientists have been predicting this since the millennium. The world has always known it was going to go out, but they always assumed it would be bigger. Instead, it has ended slowly, starting with the poles and then the crops, and finally, things were unrecognizable from the motion pictures from mere decades ago.**

**Kun’s mother’s voice rang in his head sometimes “this is the way worlds end.”**

Kun does not break his routine. On the sixth day of his week, he crosses town, down the broken streets and towards the docks. Tucked in his jacket sleeve, is the papers he is meant to trade in between two warehouses with a man whose name he barely knows. 

Technically, Yangyang is supposed to be with him. It is his day off and he is supposed to be meeting with a fisherman named Lucas about an article for the newspaper. Instead, Kun arrives alone. 

The man, John—he thinks his name is John, he is hard to recognize in the masks they all wear—does not say anything when he lets Kun through the checkpoint. They trade information and Kun knows he shouldn’t but he stops the man before he leaves. 

“Excuse me,” he says. “Do you know about the dinner party?” 

“Uh,” John clears his throat. “I’ll be honest, I don’t know if I have an invitation. Come by tomorrow. I’ll have the address.” 

Kun agrees. 

He mills about the docks for a while; he feeds the ducks and helps a little boy identify a fish. On his way out he buys a newspaper. He reads it on his walk home. Page four holds the secrets he has been looking for. 

**FOUR TAKEN**

**THIS WEEK.**

**FIND FOX**

**FOR MORE.**

He will have to find the fox. 

Kun makes Yangyang’s least favorite dish for dinner and laughs as the cat circles his feet. In the morning he wraps Yangyang’s scarf around his neck and returns to the docks. They are closed. It is day seven again. 

John hands him a package and tells him to be careful. 

“They’re watching,” he says. It’s a risk to reply but Kun does. 

“They’ve already been to my home.” 

John sighs. Kun does not tell him Yangyang was one of the ones taken. It is better he does not know. 

He takes the long way home. On his way he passes a man on a corner, crooning about the end of the world. 

“Hey,” the man calls across the street. “The sun engulfs the earth in four days! Kiss your loved ones, cool guy!” 

Kun does not laugh. He knows. 

THE HOPE ONLY

OF EMPTY MEN.

**Kun and Yangyang move in together after a year. They break in their bed in the hot sunlight of the middle of the afternoon and they kiss in every room before they finally call it home.**

**In the first few months of blissful ignorance, they pretend the government isn’t watching and they pretend they won’t both be arrested someday.**

**The world ends slowly and Kun and Yangyang know they will die young.**

**Everyone will.**

**They enjoy their youth.**

On the second day of the week, Kun makes Yangyang’s favorite dish and dreams of kissing him again. He knows he is not dead because he has not been informed of an accident. As much as he wants him back, he would rather know he is dead than suffering. 

He eats his dinner alone again, just him and the cat, but for once he does not open the curtains. In the black-out darkness he pulls out the candles and the papers and he gets to work. 

Kun knows that Yangyang won’t just come back so he commits himself to find him. It isn’t easy, getting someone Out once they’re In, but Kun has done it before and he’s done it with less. He doesn’t try to be sneaky this time, doesn’t bother opening his curtains for two days; they have already been inside. 

Either the government will get him or he will get Yangyang or the sun will take them all. 

No matter what he sees him again. 

Kun slips down to the market on the second day, instead of his usual seventh and he meets Winwin by the orchids. They exchange pleasantries and Kun tells him how to get Yangyang Out and Winwin looks at him with sad eyes. 

“The courts are closed through the end of the week,” he says as they wander past the older lady selling secrets. 

“Well,” Kun sighs. He is tired. “Make them open.” 

AT THE HOUR WHEN WE ARE

TREMBLING WITH TENDERNESS

Kun opens his curtains on the fourth day to see the world go up in flames. 

He lets the early morning light in while he folds up the papers he does not need anymore. The documents that prove Yangyang’s fake name are in the hands of a city official and it is only a matter of time before his lover walks back through the door. 

Kun has always been good at forgery. 

For the first time in his life, he opens the windows and lets the dirty air blow through. 

Kun is sitting on the couch with the cat in his lap and the windows open when the four o’clock bus comes and Yangyang drops his keys on the counter. 

The clattering sound makes his ears ring and Kun stands up faster than he really should. 

“I missed you,” he whispers into the soft skin of Yangyang’s neck. He feels him laugh against him. 

“It’s been less than a week,” Yangyang laughs, but his fingers still dig into Kun’s sides. 

Kun chokes. “I’m not letting you go until the world ends.” 

Yangyang laughs again. “Well, good thing I wasn’t planning on leaving.” 

**The world goes up in flames on the fourth day of the week.**

**It has been a long time coming. Years of carbon emission and backward plans to leave the planet left it destined for destruction. The countdown went up on Kun’s fifth birthday and he spends the next 20 years pretending that there was no timer on his life.**

**He lays his head on his pillow and lets Yangyang say his prayer as they stare at the sky not setting.**

**A world going up in flames goes slowly.**

**They die together.**

THIS IS THE WAY THE WORLD ENDS

THIS IS THE WAY THE WORLD ENDS

THIS IS THE WAY THE WORLD ENDS

NOT WITH A BANG BUT A WHIMPER.

**Author's Note:**

> [twitter](https://twitter.com/realitysuh)


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